Pendulum Testing as a Means of Assessing the Crash Performance of Longitudinal Barrier with Minor Damage

Longitudinal barriers such as w-beam guardrails are subjected to a series of full-scale crash tests to determine their impact performance before being considered acceptable for use on the nation’s highways. Once longitudinal barriers are installed along a roadway, however, they often sustain minor damage in various ways. Since barriers are exclusively tested in an undamaged condition, there is very little known regarding the crash performance of barriers that have sustained minor damage. Transportation agencies responsible for deploying and maintaining these barrier systems need a better understanding of damaged barrier performance to make timely and cost-effective barrier maintenance decisions under the constraints of limited resources. This study is believed to be the first evaluation of the crash performance of strong post w-beam barrier that has sustained minor damage. A pendulum impact testing methodology was developed for the evaluation of two-post sections of strong post w-beam barrier. Pendulum tests were then conducted on barrier sections with five types of damage: (1) vertical tear, (2) horizontal tear, (3) splice damage, (4) twisted blockout, and (5) missing blockout. Based on these tests, vertical tears were found to be a significant threat to the structural adequacy of the barrier section with a high likelihood for rail rupture. A missing blockout at the splice location was found to result in marginal performance with one test resulting in a large rail tear at the splice. Mid-span horizontal tears and splice damage, with one of eight bolts lacking bearing capacity, were found to have a less significant threat on the structural adequacy of the barrier. Twisted blockout damage was found to have no effect on the structural crash performance of the strong post w-beam barrier

Monetary policy uncertainty spillovers in time and frequency domains

We use the recently created monthly Interest Rate Uncertainty measure, to investigate monetary policy uncertainty across the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, Canada, and Sweden in both the time and frequency domains. We find that the largest spillover indices are from innovations in the country itself; however, there are some instances where spillover indices between countries are large. These relationships change over time and we observe large variances in pairwise spillovers during the global financial crisis. We find that most of the volatility is confined to the crisis period. Policy makers should consider accounting for the spillovers from the US, Germany, France and Spain, as we found that they are the most consistent net transmitters of monetary policy uncertainty

Oil volatility, oil and gas firms and portfolio diversification

This paper investigates the volatility spillovers and co-movements among oil prices and stock prices of major oil and gas corporations over the period between 18th June 2001 and 1st February 2016. To do so, we use the spillover index approach by Diebold and Yilmaz (2009, 2012, 2014, 2015) and the dynamic correlation coefficient model of Engle (2002) so as to identify the transmission mechanisms of volatility shocks and the contagion of volatility among oil prices and stock prices of oil and gas companies, respectively. Given that volatility transmission across oil and major oil and gas corporations is important for portfolio diversification and risk management, we also examine optimal weights and hedge ratios among the aforementioned series. Our results point to the existence of significant volatility spillover effects among oil and oil and gas companies’ stock volatility. However, the spillover is usually unidirectional from oil and gas companies’ stock volatility to oil volatility, with BP, CHEVRON, EXXON, SHELL and TOTAL being the major net transmitters of volatility to oil markets. Conditional correlations are positive and time-varying, with those between each of the aforementioned companies and oil being the highest. Finally, the diversification benefits and hedging effectiveness based on our results are discussed

Cinema-going trajectories in the digital age

The activity of cinema-going constantly evolves and gradually integrates the use of digital data and platforms to become more engaging for the audiences. Combining methods from the fields of Human Computer Interaction and Film Studies, we conducted two workshops seeking to understand cinema audiences’ digital practices and explore how the contemporary cinema-going experience is shaped in the digital age. Our findings suggest that going to the movies constitutes a trajectory during which cinemagoers interact with multiple digital platforms. At the same time, depending on their choices, they construct unique digital identities that represent a set of online behaviours and rituals that cinemagoers adopt before, while and after cinema-going. To inform the design of new, engaging cinemagoing experiences, this research establishes a preliminary map of contemporary cinema-going including digital data and platforms. We then discuss how audiences perceive the potential improvement of the experience and how that would lead to the construction of digital identities

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This study introduces volatility impulse response functions (VIRF) for DCC-GARCH models. In addition, the implications with respect to network analysis is illustrated by using the connectedness approach of Diebold and Yılmaz (2014) which rests on the VIRF to estimate the volatility transmission mechanism. An empirical analysis on the volatility transmission mechanism across foreign exchange rate returns is conducted. Besides the fact that VIRF are highly persistent, the findings indicate that the CHF is the main net volatility transmitter of shocks followed by the EUR, whereas the main net volatility receivers are the GBP followed by the JPY

European Currency Co-Movements and Contagion: Evidence from a Bayesian TVP-(Pseudo)FAVAR Model

This is the raw data to reproduce the results of the article "European Currency Co-Movements and Contagion: Evidence from a Bayesian TVP-(Pseudo)FAVAR Model

Data for: 3289858

This study introduces volatility impulse response functions (VIRF) for DCC-GARCH models. In addition, the implications with respect to network analysis is illustrated by using the connectedness approach of Diebold and Yılmaz (2014) which rests on the VIRF to estimate the volatility transmission mechanism. An empirical analysis on the volatility transmission mechanism across foreign exchange rate returns is conducted. Besides the fact that VIRF are highly persistent, the findings indicate that the CHF is the main net volatility transmitter of shocks followed by the EUR, whereas the main net volatility receivers are the GBP followed by the JPY.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

A closer look into the global determinants of oil price volatility

In this paper we investigate global determinants of oil price volatility by employing a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model. We focus on realised volatility and consider the impact from a set of potential determinants including oil supply, oil demand, oil inventory, financial market uncertainty, financial interbank stress, as well as, financial trends in different currencies. We investigate the impact of these factors on realised volatility utilising monthly data over the period 1990:1–2019:5. Findings show that all factors can be conducive to higher levels of realised oil price volatility particularly in the short run. What can further be noticed, is that the magnitude of the corresponding impulse response functions may differ across time and this could largely be attributed to specific intervals of financial crises and economic recessions. Nevertheless, we show that shocks originating to the financial markets tend to be more important for oil price volatility. Our findings are closely linked to the implications regarding the financialisation of the oil market

Oil price shocks and exchange rate dynamics: Evidence from decomposed and partial connectedness measures for oil importing and exporting economies

YesThis paper introduces a novel framework of partial connectedness measures to investigate contagion dynamics between different types of oil price shocks and exchange rates. Oil price shocks are persistent net transmitters of shocks within the network. It is found that the oil shock net spillovers made up most of the net connectedness values in most countries during the pre-COVID-19 period. Both oil exporters and oil importers, without any exception, were all net receivers of shocks. However, during the COVID-19 era, there were significant differences within the groups of countries. It is also observed that the oil-risk shock transmits to the other two types of oil shocks in the pre-COVID-19 and during the COVID-19 periods. The results may have potential implications for traders.David Gabauer would like to acknowledge that this research has been partly funded by BMK, BMDW, Austria and the Province of Upper Austria in the frame of the COMET Programme managed by FFG, Austria.The full-text of this article will be released for public view at the end of the publisher embargo on 23 Sep 2024